School absence rules are super powering the spread of flu

[Pavementworrier]

And people will die unnecessarily as a result and it's really annoying

Why the hell can't there be a rule that kids with flu or suspected flu (at least during peak flu season) don't have absences counted??

I have a child who is susceptable to flu, how long would you suggest they stay at home....doesn't the flu season run from about September til February 🤔

I feel for you and your child but since it’s clear that flu can be just a runny nose in kids do you think that anyone with a runny nose should stay at home? I think kids shout get a flu jab, be taught good infection control and hygiene and be sent to school. I don’t think my child should have to stay at home because you don’t want your child to, sorry.

For the record, if my child had a temperature or felt actually unwell I wouldn’t send them. Id they had “sniffles” or a bit of a cough I would.

The flu already went through my DCs secondary schools like a wildfire some weeks back. When the press catch on to this stuff it is always too late. The old and vulnerable need to have the jab and not go out if they are worried.

The politicians need to get the doctors’ strike cancelled.

I got a shittily worded attendance letter recently for DC having 5 days off with chickenpox. No other absences this year. Schools are not helping themselves.

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa I think we have got to the point where parents mostly want dc to attend school. They were pushed to one side during Covid as teachers in many cases didn’t want to work with dc and blamed them, as you are doing, for spreading germs. We all know illness can be spread. What we need to do is ensure jabs are taken up, preferably via school nurses. Teachers too. We cannot keep allowing children to be accused of health crimes when all the want is an education. If people aren’t up to being with others they need to think about what their job should be.

A society that blames dc all the time is unpleasant and causing a myriad of issues. What are parents meant to do? All be stay at home parents? How does that work when some parents are essential workers? Dc with minor colds should go to school.

DS will get the flu jab at school tomorrow having already along with quite a few of his peers had it already

I wasn’t blaming DC as part of a wider societal trend, FFS, just feeling cross that the OG poster said something like that she hoped teachers would be kept to the same high standards as students on attendance. I can assure you that we are; the disability part of the discrimination laws of 2010 can’t stop me from being put on capability just for illness… I just have to hope and pray that my employer is kind to me and sees that I’m trying my hardest and doing a decent job when I’m there.

As for reconsidering what my job should be… I trained hard for this job 20 years ago when I was in robust health. It’s only in the last five I’ve been this fucked, shell of a person. Bit hard to retrain in my current, broken state. Maybe I should claim more benefits (I already get PIP, just so you and your kind know and can hate me more) but I suspect you’d hate that and expect me to “get on my bike” and all that. Oh and FWIW I and not a single colleague of mine ever refused to work with kids during Covid. We carried on planning and delivering lessons and resources throughout… the whole teachers refusing to educate thing was bollocks spun by Johnson’s Downing Street and put out by rags like The Mail (see attached photo of just one piece of propaganda front page) to cover up their bad choices, incompetence and bad behaviour.

And FWIW teachers aren’t given free Covid and Flu jabs. I fully agree that they should get the jabs, but they cost money. I can see that if you’re a healthy EPQ on peanuts you won’t want to spend circa £70 on getting jabbed. You might not even have the choice to, it might make the difference between eating and heating for you and/or your kids. So if we want all teachers in school all of the time, get them jabbed as a matter of public interest, like we do with the kids.

But from the tone of this I suspect that you’re either a teacher-hater, disabled-hater, or both! Don’t worry though, as prisons are overcrowded, the union workhouses closed and the treadmill and poor law no longer in full vigour, I and many like me, will do our best to die and decrease the surplus population.

@OhDear111couldn't attach it, so have it here instead.

Schools and Covid did make me laugh. Your child will be safe at school we have put precautions in place to help stop them catching Covid.

Schools can’t stop kids passing on nits let alone something you can’t see 😅

But yes times like this the schools or local education departments really should take into account that loads of bugs are flying around and be a little less attack dog on children being off sick.

Agreed. We called to let school know DC had chicken pox on a Wednesday. The following Monday we received an automated text to say DC had been reported to the attendance team at the council. I called the school immediately to ask what on earth that's about, and was told I was supposed to call on the Monday "because it's a new week" to let them know DC was still off. It's CHICKEN POX. They know there's an outbreak - most of the class have had it. Then, even though we had spoken on Monday we got another text on the Tuesday. So now we're on some list with the attendance team like we're deadbeats who keep their child off school for no reason. It's so offensive.

Charming.

That is not a valid excuse to knowing send your child in when they’re ill! You doing that could kill somebody and no I’m not just talking about kids with leukaemia

Wow you’re like totally lacking in empathy, aren’t you?

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa Fellow disabled and chronically ill here, wishing you a full and speedy recovery

if 60% were actually off and the teachers were sending letters home to parents sending sick kids in, wouldn't the school have been better off making a fire break and just closing for a week?

bit that's such a petulant reply.

instead of making a sensible decision based on what is best for your kids and to a degree your school community, it's like your stamping your feet and going "FINE, I'll send her in, and then you'll bet poorly too, and telhen you'll be sorry and that'll teach you for upsetting me, neh neg na neh neh!!!! 😛😛😛

I'm genuinely worried about the impact of school absences on one of my primary aged children, who have had 11 days off since returning from the summer holiday. But 10 of the 11 days were split over three different inpatient stays in the children's hospital, and the remaining one the the day immediately after she got home from hospital at 21.30. She's sitting at 91.75% attendance this term.

She has a chronic condition which flares in the winter, she is periodically immune suppressed. She already goes to school when she has minor illnesses and viruses, more so I suspect than her classmates, as anything more major is an immediate hospital admission.

I'm not sure there is anything we can practically do to improve her attendance beyond what we are managing. I've asked the school, they can't suggest anything either. We are doing a lot of work at home to try to keep her up to the class standard. We are expecting a follow up from the council about her attendance though as we are way below what they chase on.

How can I know they're ill when they're asymptomatic?

As stated, I will review my policy when they review theirs.

That's about the long and short of it, yes. Reap what you sow.

The education secretary is driving this

We know when we or our DC have a sniffle or something worse so just follow your own judgement. I've sent a DC in unwell, hoping they would perk up, and phone call an hour later to pick up. Felt awful, didn't want to take him in and seeing him so poorly I've sworn to myself I won't do it again. School was fine about it, they know the genuine cases as otherwise has exemplary attendance.

As a teacher and parent, fine for us all with a cold, not ideal, but anything worse it's downright stupid to attend. Xxx

I'm sorry that it's affecting your daughter's confidence. Please know that her teacher almost certainly feels awful about it. I felt incredibly guilty leaving my English classes due to sickness, especially just before their exams - the guilt was awful on top of everyone else, and only one or two of my colleagues knew it was because I'd just been diagnosed with a brain tumour; never mind the students and their parents.

Attendance obsession absolutely is applied to teachers, so I don't for a second think there are teachers going off for weeks at a time without a genuine reason.

I mean, it's your choice to raise your kids like that
personally ill keep putting their needs first. they need to be home if they're ill, and sometimes I have to decide that's even when they think they feel well enough at 8 am. you're entitled to use yours to make a poin the head teacher is most definitely not getting

try not to worry, I hate to thi 13 nk what our attendance is this term in year 6 - maybe 85%?. missed first day back in September for an op and day after to recover. half day for pre op in November. then was off Monday pm 24th Nov and he went back today. it is what it is. we needed a care plan to return else he'd have gone back yesterday. another half day off Friday to go back in for a dressing change. Our children's hospital is 13 miles away his midday appt will wipe out most of the day.